The powers of the stomach would seem to consist in decomposing the _Ingesta_, and reducing them into simpler forms, rather than in complicating them, by favouring new combinations.
But every rational physician must feel in its full force, the absurdity of expecting to account for the phænomena of life upon principles deduced from the analogies of inert matter, and we therefore find that the most intelligent physiologists of modern times have been anxious to discourage the attempt, and to deprecate its folly. Sir Gilbert Blane, in his luminous work on MEDICAL LOGIC, when speaking of the different theories of digestion, tells us that Dr. William Hunter, whose peculiar sagacity and precision of mind detected at a glance the hollowness of such delusive hypotheses, and saw the danger which theorists run in trusting themselves on such slippery ground, expressed himself in his public lectures, with that solidity of judgment combined with facetiousness of expression, which rendered him unparalleled as a public teacher. “Gentlemen,” said he, “Physiologists will have it that the stomach is a mill—others, that it is a fermenting-vat—others again, that it is a stew-pan,—but in my view of the matter, it is neither a mill, a fermenting-vat, nor a stew-pan—but a STOMACH, Gentlemen, a STOMACH.”
What can illustrate in a more familiar and striking manner the singular powers of _Gastric Chemistry_, than the fact of the shortness of time in which the aliment becomes acid in depraved digestion? A series of changes is thus produced in a few hours, which would require in the laboratory as many weeks,[116] while in acute affections of the alimentary canal the functions of the stomach are nearly suspended, and hence under such circumstances, whatever is introduced into this organ remains unchanged, even the nutritious mucilages are not digested.
From what has been said, it is very evident that the mere chemist can have no pretensions to the art of composing or discriminating remedies; whenever he arraigns the scientific propriety of our Prescriptions, in direct contradiction to the deductions of true medical experience,—whenever he forsakes his laboratory for the bed-side, he forfeits all his claims to our respect, and his title to our confidence. It is amusing to see the ridiculous errors into which the chemist falls, when he turns physician; as soon as Seguin found that Peruvian bark contained a peculiar principle that precipitated _Tannin_, he immediately concluded that this _could not be any other_ than _Gelatine_, and upon the faith of this blunder, the French, Italian, and German physicians,[117] gave their patients nothing but _Clarified Glue_, in intermittent fevers!—But I desist—not however without expressing a hope, in which I am sure my medical brethren will concur, that, should Mr. Brande again condescend to favour us with a commentary upon Boerhaave, he will select that passage in his work, where, alluding to the application of Chemistry to Physic, he emphatically exclaims, “EGREGIA ILLIUS ANCILLA EST, NON ALIA PEJOR DOMINA.”